Barista Magazine

APR-MAY 2018

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F O A M : N E W S + T R E N D S
BACK TO SCHOOL: HOW THE
INDUSTRY IS HELPING UC DAVIS
BUILD A LEADING ACADEMIC
PROGRAM FOR COFFEE
RABBIT HOLES ARE COMMONPLACE in
our modern specialty-coffee industry—as we
hunger for information about how things tick,
many of us conduct experiments and delve head-
fi rst into learning as much as we can about our
product. This has happened in part because of
the enterprising and curious people who work
in coffee, but also because we've had to fi nd this
information on our own: Very little academic re-
search has been conducted on coffee, and so there
have been few resources from which to draw.
That may be about to change, however, thanks
to the exponential development of the coffee
program at the University of California at Davis.
In just six years, UC Davis' coffee program has
grown from a one-course offering to a series of
classes and more than 40 faculty members with
expertise ranging from fermentation microbiol-
ogy to sensory and consumer science. Soon, with
the support of several coffee industry companies,
UC Davis will renovate a 6,000-square-foot,
state-of-the-art building to serve as the home of
its Coffee Center. It happened quickly, but this
institution has already become a hotbed for the
coffee industry, with the potential to play a key
role in how we interact with, consume, and under-
stand the product well into the future.
UC Davis' coffee program took root in 2012
with the introduction of its Design of Coffee
course, developed by chemical engineering pro-
fessors William Ristenpart and Tonya Kuhl. The
undergraduate course, which covered the prin-
ciples and practices of coffee brewing, became a
hit: Students voted it the best course on campus
in 2016, and it currently has the highest enroll-
ment of any elective course at UC Davis.
The university then launched a "coffee
initiative," bringing together faculty interested
in researching coffee via a variety of academic
sectors. For UC Davis, conducting leading-edge
research focused on a craft beverage was familiar territory: The
university's Robert Mondavi Institute is a sought-after program for
the study of wine and food science that also includes a beer brewery.
"We already have world-class wine and beer programs at Davis,"
says Professor Ristenpart, who is now director of the UC Davis Cof-
fee Center. "Independent companies [such as Anheuser-Busch and
winemaker Robert Mondavi] donated to get them off the ground,
and now they're providing high-quality academic education."
As the coffee initiative grew, UC Davis faculty looked for a place
to house the center. Around this time, the Advanced Materials Re-
search Laboratory opened up, and the coffee program saw an oppor-
tunity to build out facilities for its program in an existing space. "We
got the green light from the administration to work with the coffee
industry to raise funds to renovate the building into a dedicated cen-
ter for coffee research and education," says Professor Ristenpart.
That's right—just as it did with its wine and beer programs, UC
Davis called on industry companies for support in bringing to life the
facilities to house the academic programs, and those with substantial
donations would have a room in the Coffee Center named in their
honor. Professor Ristenpart says the industry response was almost
immediate. "We didn't even have to call anyone," he says. "They
came to us."
First to step forward was Northern California native Peet's Coffee,
which pledged $250,000 in September 2016 to fund renovation of the
building devoted to post-harvest coffee research and education, to be
named the Peet's Coffee Pilot Roastery. Doug Welsh, Peet's vice pres-
Top photo: The UC Davis Undergraduate Coff ee Lab is a 1,200-square-foot laboratory where students can
explore engineering principles through roasting and brewing coff ee. Below, the UC Davis Coff ee Center
building will soon be under rennovation to accommodate the university's growing multidisciplinary coff ee-
research program.
PHOTO
BY
REETA
ASMAI/UC
DAVIS
PHOTO
COURTESY
OF
SARAH
HODGE/UC
DAVIS
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